What immigration target should Ottawa set for 2018? – Conference Board

2017/10/04 Leave a comment

An important and balanced take on the choices facing Canada and the government. The full report is worth reading as it makes a serious effort, through scenarios, to assess likely overall impact of increased levels, for GDP and more important, per capita GDP.

Unlike most immigration boosters, it also emphasizes the need for associated investments to ensure that immigrants integrate successfully into the economy and society (Doug Saunders in Maximum Canada makes the same essential point):

Federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen is currently consulting with his colleagues and Canadians to identify the appropriate number. This is a much more challenging task than it sounds. Canada must not only consider demographic and economic metrics – such as birth, death and unemployment rates – but also “known unknowns,” such as the impact that automation will have on jobs in Canada. Immigration levels are also influenced by key social factors such as public opinion.

The Conference Board of Canada does detailed modelling on the impact of various immigration-level scenarios. We look at the effect on economic growth, income per capita, health-care costs, the ratio of workers to retirees and other metrics. Most importantly, we also consider the challenges of integrating newcomers into the Canadian economy.

While immigration is a huge benefit to our economy, the Conference Board estimates that $12.7-billion of potential is lost each year as a result of the labour market barriers that immigrants experience. This gap occurs in spite of the fact that immigrants are highly educated and bring many skills. Canada’s economic performance suffers through lost productivity, lower tax revenue and reduced purchasing power for immigrants.

Canada has made significant reforms in recent years to improve immigrant outcomes. These changes include: giving provinces and employers a bigger role in the selection process; increasing selection standards; and giving advantage to immigration applicants already in Canada, such as international students. Much work has also been done on the settlement front, such as increased investments in language training and providing immigrants with more information before they arrive in Canada.

In addition to these positive reforms, Canada can pursue other measures. Often, businesses are keen to hire immigrants but don’t know where to start. Governments can do more to help businesses navigate the immigration system and develop intercultural competency. Canada also needs to identify the right balance between accountability and flexibility for the settlement program. It is vital to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent prudently, while also giving settlement organizations the ability to be flexible and innovative to respond to the needs of immigrants and business within their local communities.

Source: What immigration target should Ottawa set for 2018? – The Globe and Mail

Full report: 450,000 Immigrants Annually? Integration is Imperative to Growth

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Conference Board Immigration Summit: My Citizenship Presentation

2017/05/10 Leave a comment

For those interested, this is the latest version of my citizenship deck, being delivered later today at the Conference Board Immigration Summit. A mix of 2016 and 2015 data as some of the specialized datasets have not yet been updated by IRCC.

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Businesses applaud changes to allow temporary foreign workers to stay as long as permits renewed

2016/12/17 Leave a comment

Yet another reversal of the previous government’s policy but partial  -the caps on company numbers remain with priority to be given to under-represented groups in Canada:

The government announced Tuesday afternoon it will allow migrant workers to continue filling jobs in industries ranging from meat-packing to tourism for as many years as their employers continue to renew their permit – in effect, making the presence of these temporary workers more permanent.

“Many people who fell under this category are people who would return to Canada, again and again and again, year after year,” said Michael Burt, director of industrial economic trends at the Conference Board of Canada. “It’s a positive thing in a sense that, broadly speaking, both employers and TFWs were looking for opportunities to stay in Canada to keep that relationship going.”

After four years of working in Canada, most migrant workers in occupations requiring little or no post-secondary education would then be unable to return here for another four years unless they secured permanent residency through a provincial immigration program.

That “four-in-four-out” policy was created by the Conservative government in 2011 to ensure that jobs filled by temporary foreign workers were truly temporary. It led to thousands of foreign workers remaining in Canada undocumented, and thousands more leaving while employers in industries like agriculture, food processing and hospitality complained of persistent labour shortages.

“It uprooted people who had lived and worked in the country for many, many years,” said Syed Hussan, an organizer with the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, which is calling for permanent residency for temporary foreign workers upon landing.

In many cases, employers proved no Canadians were available for the jobs these workers were leaving behind so they could hire new temporary foreign workers to fill the roles. In others, the four-year limit, combined with other restrictions on the temporary foreign worker program, meant that jobs went unfilled even though employers increased efforts to recruit Canadians.

“It has had the effect of forcing a lot of people to go home that we should really be pursuing to stay in Canada permanently, as opposed to giving them the boot,” said Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Kelly and other industry representatives are hopeful the Liberal government will soon follow through on its promise to develop pathways to permanent residency for lower-skilled workers, who are currently shut out of federal immigration programs.

…Some economists, such as Armine Yalnizyan at the left-wing Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, also support granting permanent residency to more migrant workers. Relying on a permanent stream of temporary workers destabilizes local labour markets by suppressing wages and opportunities for young Canadians, Yalnizyan said.

But others say the removal of the four-year limit blurs the distinctions between permanent and temporary immigration programs, raising questions about the future of Canada’s immigration system.

“What distinguishes the two streams now, when the idea of ‘temporary’ is taken out of the equation by removing the amount of time they can spend in Canada?” said Colin Busby, associate director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute.

It is unclear how Canada will balance taking in a large number of temporary foreign workers permanently with the permanent immigration system’s traditional focus on high-skilled workers to meet Canada’s long-term economic needs, Busby added.

But, for many in the agricultural sector, including Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst, executive director of the Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council, long-term economic and social integration of temporary workers is precisely the point.

“There should be opportunities for them and pathways to become Canadian citizens,” she said.

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Increased immigration urged to support economic growth amid aging population: Conference Board

2016/10/08 Leave a comment

This boosterism is in contrast to the more sober assessment (see Jason Kirby’s Canada’s demographic gap can’t be filled with immigrants):

Ottawa will need to raise its annual immigration level by one-third to 407,000 by 2030 to sustain its economic growth amid an aging population, says a new report on Canada’s demographic trends.

Currently, Canadians 65 and over account for 16 per cent of the total population, but the ratio is expected to rise to 24 per cent in the next two decades, according to the report by the Conference Board of Canada, released Thursday.

With a birth rate hovering around 1.55 children per woman and a longer life expectancy, researchers examined five scenarios of population targets between now and the year 2100, and their impact on labour force growth and government expenditures for health care and old age security benefits.

“The aging of Canada’s population will have a significant impact on Canada’s potential economic growth. Weaker labour force growth will have a negative impact on household spending, while a more slowly expanding economy will engender less investment spending,” warns the 54-page report.

“Weaker economic growth over the long-term will limit the amount of revenue that governments in Canada collect over the forecast period at a time when the aging of Canada’s population will require significantly more expenditures. . . Higher immigration can increase the growth of Canada’s labour force over the long-term and generate higher economic growth.”

The call for a higher immigration level came just as a new Angus Reid Institute poll this week found 68 per cent of Canadians said they prefer minorities to “do more to fit in” with mainstream Canada — and a drop in public support for multiculturalism.

While Immigration Minister John McCallum has hinted the Liberal government’s intent to increase the number of immigrants “substantially,” the Conservative party’s leadership race has sparked a debate over the needs to test would-be immigrants on “Canadian values.”

According to the conference board report, Canada’s natural rate of increase currently adds about 120,000 people to the population each year, but will drop progressively in the coming years as the number of deaths rises steadily and births decrease.

With the current annual immigration level at 260,000 (or less than 1 per cent of the 35 million population) and birth rate, Canada’s economic growth would slow from the current 2 per cent to around 1.6 per cent by 2050.

By reaching the 100 million population target in 2100, the report said Canada would need to increase its annual immigration levels to 407,000 a year by 2030.

From 2030 to 2050, it said, the immigration growth must be raised annually to 2.1 per cent of the population in order to improve Canada’s economic growth to 2.3 per cent by the middle of the century from the current projection of 2 per cent.

The impact of growing to 100 million people in 2100 can reduce old age security spending from 12 per cent to below 10 per cent of government revenues, as well as cutting the provincial health costs from 34.5 per cent to 29.2 per cent of provincial spending.

At that population growth rate, the number of new houses built would rise to 432,000 rather than 268,000 under the status-quo projection of 53.7 million population in 2100. Spending growth will also spread to durable goods and in investment, said the study.

“Higher immigration and fertility rates soften the significant cost strains on the Canadian system in the long-term,” the report noted. “However, over the next 25 years, Canada must also look to other solutions to address the impact of an aging population . . . Growth in the population is one level that can be part of the mix.”

Source: Increased immigration urged to support economic growth amid aging population | Toronto Star

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Shaping the future of Canada’s immigration system

2016/08/04 Leave a comment

A number of opinions on the issues set out in the current immigration consultations (see earlier Collacott: Immigration ‘conversation” is public relations exercise, IRCC Discussion guide on immigration: What about citizenship?).

In addition to my comments below, views of Debbie Douglas (faster processing of family reunification), Harald Bauder (more funding for settlement, pathways from temporary to permanent residency), Jeff Reitz (greater efforts on employment) and the Conference Board (increased immigration levels, spread across the country):

Having inherited an immigration system plagued with backlogs and heavy-handed enforcement, the Liberal government says it’s keen to hear what you think needs to be done about Canada’s immigration future.

Since the beginning of the summer, Immigration Minister John McCallum and his parliamentary secretary, Arif Virani, have held more than two dozen roundtable meetings across Canada with settlement services organizations, businesses and community groups to get their thoughts.

Although the meetings are by invitation only — more are coming in August — the public can submit ideas by email to the minister. Since early July, more than 2,500 online submissions have been received. Submissions end Aug. 5.

“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will be reviewing the feedback from Canadians to help guide decisions on how many people we will welcome in the coming years and the future of immigration in Canada,” said a department spokesperson.

While the final report won’t be ready till at least the fall, the Star interviewed a group of immigration experts to weigh in on the national dialogue by identifying gaps in the system and offering solutions.

Meaningful and accessible citizenship:

Andrew Griffith, a former director general at the immigration department, said Canada largely has its immigration policies and programs right, but an independent review by a royal commission would be helpful.

He said the consultation questions are biased towards economic class immigrants and miss out on important areas such as citizenship.

“Most immigrants choose to become citizens as part of their integration into Canadian society. If we believe in immigration integration, we should support political integration, in addition to economic, social and cultural,” said Griffith.

“The main instrument for doing so is citizenship, given that allows for full participation in the political process.”

Canada’s naturalization rate has been declining, from the peak of 93.3 per cent for immigrants who came before 1971, to just 36.7 per cent among those who arrived between 2006 and 2007.

Griffith said Ottawa must set targets for naturalization as a benchmark, to assess whether its policies strike the right balance in making citizenship accessible and meaningful.

Officials must also regularly review citizenship requirements to ensure that different ethnic groups and immigration classes (economic, family and refugees) have comparable outcomes. Reducing the hefty application fee from the current $530 would make citizenship more financially accessible.

Source: Shaping the future of Canada’s immigration system | Toronto Star

The Hill Times has the political reaction to the (trial balloon?) of differential immigration fees:

The federal government is seeking public feedback on letting some immigration applicants pay more for faster processing.

That idea is one of many put forward in an online consultation document the government is asking members of the public to fill out as it gears up for an overhaul of the immigration processing system.

The NDP’s immigration critic and a pair of Liberal and NDP MPs say bringing in a two-tiered Canadian immigration system is out of the question.

“I wouldn’t support it,” said NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.). “By doing that, effectively you’re saying you can buy your way into the system and bypass everybody.”

“They’re absolutely creating a two-tiered system if that were to proceed,” she said.

However, Liberal MP Peter Fonseca (Mississauga East-Cooksville, Ont.) and a Toronto immigration lawyer say such a system could help to improve immigration processing.

The issue is one close to MPs’ hearts as much of their constituency work is tied up in helping constituents with immigration questions, including application processing.

Many MPs have two staffers in their riding offices and at least one attends to constituents’ immigration needs. The most common complaints of constituents about immigration issues are related to long delays in the processing times of applications for family reunification, refugees, spousal sponsorship, temporary foreign workers, visitor visas, and Canadian citizenship applications.

Immigration reform

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Citizenship workshop @ImmigrationCBoC: Points of interest

2016/04/07 Leave a comment

Good workshop panel, with Charlie Foran and Arghavan Gerami joining me, with each of us covering different aspects.

Two points of interest for me that arose in the questions and discussion:

  • The impact of the physical presence requirement on internationally mobile professionals and business people. One CEO made the persuasive case that this requirement precluded citizenship for those based in Canada but whose frequent travel abroad meant they were not able to meet the minimum number of days in Canada requirement; and,
  • A former citizenship judge picking up on this point, noted the reduced role of judges in decision-making meant that the lack of days could not be balanced against the overall contribution such individuals made. The lack of discretion, introduced to provide greater consistency in decision-making (a valid policy and program objective), had consequences for this small but significant group.

Physical presence was introduced to address those who only had a legal residence or presence in Canada but who lived abroad, with the main examples being from Hong Kong and the Gulf countries.

Some early consultations and discussion on residency requirements suggested that making it four out of six years (being changed to three out of five years in C-6) would provide reasonable flexibility for those whose work took them outside Canada (e.g., truckers, pilots and a number of professions), while balancing the need to have the meaningful experience of Canada that came from living here.

I suspect that additional consultations and analysis would provide better data on how many people are affected, or potentially affected, with consequent reflection on whether policy and program adjustments are required.

Given the nature of the Conference Board audience, many of the plenary sessions focussed, directly or indirectly, on questions of business or investor immigration. Most of these speakers were advocates, given the nature of their organization or business, and largely ignored the body of evidence that previous programs had not generated significant economic returns.

One panelist even praised the Quebec model, despite the common knowledge that many if not most business investors in Quebec left, with Chinese investors in particular largely ending up in British Columbia, and who also advocated for a citizenship investor program similar to Malta and Cyprus.

Will be interesting to see if these comments on citizenship and business and investor immigration make it into the Conference Board’s immigration action plan and, if so, the precise nature of the recommendations.

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Citizenship Deck and Statistics Update: Conference Board Immigration Summit Presentation

2016/04/05 Leave a comment

Will be presenting today this updated and tightened version of the Metropolis deck presented a month ago with the full 2015 operational data. Overall trends remain the same: current pass rate remains about 90 percent and the trend of declining naturalization remains.

Citizenship – Conference Board April 2016

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ICYMI – 2016: A Record-Setting Year for Refugee Resettlement in Canada?

2016/02/12 Leave a comment

Good background brief on refugee acceptance patterns and history by the Conference Board’s Kareem El-Assal, in preparation for their April Immigration Summit:

Should Canada meet its Syrian refugee pledge, we can expect to see several interesting developments in 2016. Canada’s combined intake of refugees across all categories and source countries will likely exceed 30,000 for the first time since 2006, and could surpass 40,000 for the first time since 1992, which would mark only the fifth such occasion since 1979. Canada’s intake of resettled refugees in 2016 is set to exceed 20,000 for the first time since 1992.

Another noteworthy statistic: should Canada meet its pledged amount of 23,000 Syrian GARs in 2016, it will result in the largest number of refugees arriving to Canada through government assistance in a calendar year since 1957, when Canada helped land over 32,000 Hungarian refugees.

While the number of Syrians arriving will likely fall short of the number of boat people resettled between 1975 and 1980, the total of Syrian refugees admitted into Canada by December 2016 could well surpass the Hungarian arrivals in 1956–57 as Canada’s second-largest post-Second World War resettlement effort ever, underscoring the historical magnitude of Canada’s Syrian refugee commitment.

On April 4–5, 2016, in Ottawa, we will be discussing refugee settlement and integration, and other pressing immigration issues, at The Conference Board of Canada’s 2016 Immigration Summit.

The Summit will engage participants in thought-provoking dialogue, and share national and international best-practice solutions to the challenges we face in improving our immigration system. Click here to become involved.

Source: 2016: A Record-Setting Year for Refugee Resettlement in Canada?

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Helping immigrant nurses a ‘win-win’ for Canada: Study

2015/11/02 Leave a comment

An example where more effective foreign credential recognition and related bridging programs can help:

As baby boomers age, Canada faces a looming health-care crunch that will be exacerbated by a projected shortage of tens of thousands of nurses.

That makes it more important than ever for Canada to help foreign-trained nurses qualify to practice here, according to a Conference Board of Canada study.

Each dollar invested by Ottawa and provincial governments in helping registered nurses acquire Canadian licences generates $9 in future income tax revenue — a nine-fold return, according to the study — not to mention their contributions to the care of the country’s rapidly aging population.

With seniors outnumbering children for the first time ever, according to new Statistics Canada figures, and a projected shortage of 60,000 nurses by 2022, investing in bridging programs makes immense sense, experts say.

“This is a win-win for Canada and the internationally educated nurses (IEN),” said Michael Bloom, the conference board’s vice-president in charge of industry and business strategy. “The concept of investing in career bridging programs is good and sound. It yields returns.”

According to the study, more than half of immigrants with health professional backgrounds have trouble getting their foreign credentials recognized in Canada, compared to just 40 per cent in other regulated professions.

In 2011, only 54 per cent of foreign-born and educated nurses had a job that matched their education in Ontario, with unemployment rates among foreign-trained registered nurses at 6 per cent and 8.3 per cent among registered practical nurses.

Source: Helping immigrant nurses a ‘win-win’ for Canada: Study | Toronto Star

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Which party is ready to deal with Canada’s aging demographics? – The Globe and Mail

2015/08/29 Leave a comment

Daniel Muzyka and Glen Hodgson of the Conference Board of Canada on labour market, including immigration, policies (assume at some point they will further flesh-out their specific immigration-related recommendations 3 and 4):

Labour market policies are another key area, and there are a number of policy options available if the problem is properly diagnosed. These include:

  1. Ensuring that Canadian workers have the knowledge and skills needed in tomorrow’s work force. In a world with accelerating technological and competitive pressures, all Canadians will need access to continuous education, training and development within a philosophy of life-long learning.
  2. Improving labour-force flexibility and mobility to fully utilize the existing work force and to allow individuals across the country to pursue opportunities that present themselves.
  3. Providing an opportunity for all citizens, notably underrepresented groups (such as aboriginals and recent immigrants), to fully participate in the work force.
  4. Continuing to develop and implement effective approaches to immigration and the full integration of immigrants into Canadian society.
  5. Creating the best incentives for individuals arriving at retirement age to stay engaged in the work force and for organizations to make innovative use of their knowledge and skills.

The message is that aging demographics are already having a negative impact on our economy’s performance. Those who wish to occupy 24 Sussex Dr. should be asked to define their policy ideas for strengthening Canada’s growth potential.

Source: Which party is ready to deal with Canada’s aging demographics? – The Globe and Mail

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